Management, Organizational Performance, and Task Clarity: Evidence from Ghana's Civil Service

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rasul, Imran; Rogger, Daniel; Williams, Martin J.
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Oxford
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muaa034
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 259-277
• 关键词: PUBLIC-SECTOR; governance indicators; incentives; pockets; english; LEVEL; FIRMS; pay

摘要

We study the relationship between management practices, organizational performance, and task clarity, using observational data analysis on an original survey of the universe of Ghanaian civil servants across 45 organizations and novel administrative data on over 3,600 tasks they undertake. We first demonstrate that there is a large range of variation across government organizations, both in management quality and in task completion, and show that management quality is positively related to task completion. We then provide evidence that this association varies across dimensions of management practice. In particular, task completion exhibits a positive partial correlation with management practices related to giving staff autonomy and discretion, but a negative partial correlation with practices related to incentives and monitoring. Consistent with theories of task clarity and goal ambiguity, the partial relationship between incentives/monitoring and task completion is less negative when tasks are clearer ex ante and the partial relationship between autonomy/ discretion and task completion is more positive when task completion is clearer ex post. Our findings suggest that organizations could benefit from providing their staff with greater autonomy and discretion, especially for types of tasks that are ill-suited to predefined monitoring and incentive regimes.